A hadith recorded across several collections describes the affair of the believer as entirely good, remarkable in that it is a condition granted to no one else: if ease comes, he gives shukr and it is good for him, and if hardship befalls him, he shows sabr and it is good for him as well, a teaching that frames the two virtues as jointly exhaustive rather than as responses to opposite circumstances, since between them they cover every possible condition life presents. Ghazali analyses shukr into three components in his treatment of the virtue: gratitude of the heart, recognising that a blessing comes from God rather than crediting it solely to one's own effort or to chance; gratitude of the tongue, verbal acknowledgement and praise; and gratitude of the limbs, using the blessing itself, wealth, strength, position, in ways that honour rather than betray its source, a threefold structure that keeps the virtue from collapsing into words alone.
The Quran states a specific conditional promise attached to shukr, that if you are grateful, I will surely increase you, a verse cited throughout devotional and ethical literature as tying gratitude directly to the sustaining and multiplication of blessing rather than presenting it as merely a polite response owed after the fact.